


Better Days

by Gage



Series: Out of this Verse [1]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen, POV Change, mild violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-04-12 23:26:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4498764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gage/pseuds/Gage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not easy being a kid...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Middle

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta'd, just moving this from a previous archive.

~*~

 

Contrary to popular belief the Cooper-William’s kid and the Harkness-Jones kid did not get along. 

It was Miss Anna’s opinion that the two be never mixed and therefore always seated away from one another. Any and all activities were to design to keep the two apart and thus negating explosive arguments and or fancy fights. This kept her classroom in a happy and working order. 

That is until little Tabitha Witling got sick and insisted that she wanted Miss Anna with her and no one else. Reluctantly (honestly it wasn’t because Tabitha was covered in god knows what), she left Millie (her T.A.) in charge of the others. 

One can only assume that what happened next was completely and utterly… NOT. HER. FAULT.

Not even ten minutes gone when she’d been called back. Upon her return one guilty looking T.A. and two bloody-bruised looking children were what greeted her. 

“Oh for heaven sakes….” 

They didn’t pay her enough for this. 

 

~*~

 

_“Yes Gwen… this is the fifth time… well maybe if you were here.”_

 

The two little girls in the back seat glared at each other. The girl with stormy blue eyes had the bloody busted lip. The other had a nice swollen shiner surrounding her brown eyes. 

_“No I don’t think… well you can tell ‘em stuff it yeah…”_

 

Behind the man on the phone the dark haired, brown eyed little girl turned away and began digging through her backpack. Pulling out her binder she thumbs through the pages. “You are going to be in so much trouble.” she mumbles low enough for the other to hear her. 

 

The girl with the busted lip turned her gaze away from the window. “I don’t think so.” 

 

“I know so,” came the snooty reply. “My mam is a special OPP's, she won’t stand for this. You‘re going to get locked up for this.” 

 

Licking the almost dried blood on her bottom lip, stormy blue eyes glazes over with something kin to murder intent. Assessing the situation she decides that no one would dare lock her up. Her Tad wouldn’t allow it, and even if they did, her Dad would bust her out guns a blazing’. Yep. The twit deserved the punch she gave… and more. 

Maybe if she was really good and quiet Uncle Rhys wouldn’t tell her dad. 

 

~*~

 

**Harkness-Jones Resident**

 

_“You gave her a black eye?!”_

 

Rats. 

 

_“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t ground you for this.”_

 

She took a deep breath to answer but was cut off by her Dad.

 

_“She had it coming, better not even leave your mouth.”_

 

She snapps her mouth shut and looks away. He’d gotten real good at knowing what she was gonna say. Maybe he really could read her mind. It wasn’t fair that he could do that. 

 

“Don‘t tell Tad,” Was the only thing she could think of. Her Dad was now at eye level and had that look in his eyes. The one that told her she was in deep trouble but so was he. 

 

_“You can not hit your cousin.”_

 

She scrunched her nose up in mild disgust. “She’s not my cousin; we’re not enough blood related!” 

 

_“That isn’t the point, and you know it.”_

 

He didn’t look mad anymore which was a good sign; maybe she could get out of this without the grounding. Huh… 

 

_“Sapphira Sian Harkness-Jones!”_

 

Or not. 

 

Tad’s home.

 

~*~

 

**Cooper-William’s Residence**

 

 _“I don’t understand why you two can’t get along; you’ve known each other since you were in the womb.”_ Her Mam was pacing back and forth like a crazy person. _“It’s as if you were mortal enemies or something.”_

 

A snort came from her father, which received an effective glare from here Mam. 

 

“She’s an animal Mam, she ought be locked up.” 

 

_“Tegan Isolde Cooper-Williams, that's enough…”_

 

“She deserves it.” Holding her ground against her Tad’s words.

 

_“Really? What for?”_

 

Oh that was not the response she had been looking for at all. Her Mam had not been happy when she came home to find her with a bruised eye. She was furious when she tried to tell her what had happened. Well her side anyway. So she pointed to her injured eye as if it were the obvious answer.

Her parents looked at each other. Huh, maybe she would come out of this with out being blamed after all. 

 

~*~ 

 

**Harkness-Jones Residence**

 

“What?!”

 

_“You heard your Tad.”_

 

“I’m not gonna apologize to that, that…”

 

 _“Sian.”_ Her Tad’s voice held warning. 

 

“That toad!” Was all she could say. She felt hot and cold all over. Her fingers itched badly as she looked between her parents. This wasn’t fair they were making her say sorry for something that wasn’t even her fault. 

 

_“You know better than to raise your hand against anyone.”_

 

Her fingers curl into tight fist wanting to hit something hard. “You weren‘t there, you didn‘t hear what she said!” 

 

_“Sian.”_

 

“I didn‘t do anything wrong, she swung first!” 

 

Her parents exchange looks; they were doing that mind talking thing. It wasn’t fair they could do that. 

 

~*~ 

 

**Cooper-Williams Residence**

 

“You’re not serious Mam!” She turned her pleading brown eyes to her Tad hoping he would do something. 

 

_“As a heart attack. You will apologize to Sian and you will spend this weekend being civil to one another.”_

 

“But she's a mutant! How do you expect me to… wait a minute what do you mean being civil to one another?” 

 

~*~

 

**Harkness-Jones Residence**

 

“No way!” 

 

_“Its already been decided,”_

 

“But I’m supposed to go with Martha this weekend.” This was a bad, bad dream. Any minute she was gonna wake up strap to a table and an alien looking down at her. Yep. Her Tad couldn’t seriously make her spend another minute with that evil monster. 

 

“Dad.” She turned to her Dad hoping he would have some mercy on her. There was no way he would let this happen… they were doing that mind talking thing again. Only it didn’t last that long cause when her Dad looked at her she knew it was over.


	2. Sian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I've asked you repeatedly not to do that..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recently lost all edited versions of any fic I ever posted here. So the ones i'm uploading, are not beta'd. These are the ones I had archived else where.

**Harkness-Jones Residence**

 

_“You remember when they were small and couldn’t talk?”_

 

She wasn’t eaves dropping, nope she just happen to be searching for her woobie (no she isn't too old for him) in the vents and hears them talking.

 

_“I seem to recall you begging them to talk.”_

 

She could just see her Tad giving her Dad his special smile. The one that made him hop in place. 

 

_“Yeah, well I take it back.”_

 

_“Too late now.”_

 

_“Do you think we were wrong?”_

 

_“Jack…”_

 

Huh… she wasn’t the only one he use that warning voice on.

 

_“I’m just saying, maybe they wouldn’t fight so much if Tegan knew…”_

 

_“Gwen and Rhys made their choice, and it’s not our place to challenge that.”_

 

She had thought about this for a long time before shaking her head. Why wouldn’t Uncle Rhys and Aunt Gwen tell their mutant that there really were monsters in the world?

 

~*~

**NEXT DAY**

 

Dad said she had scared all the ‘normal’ sitter’s away. She had totally not been eavesdropping when her parents talked about what to do cause she’d been suspended for fighting. Her sister had already been dropped off at the school early that morning. Since no one ‘normal’ could or would watch her they came up with a plan…

 

_“Are you sure about this Jack?”_

 

_“Not really, no…”_

 

_"If this is your idea of comfort... ...unbelievable… of all the…”_

 

Wow… her Tad really could cuss up a storm when he wanted to. It wasn’t fair that he could do that. 

 

_“Explain to me why we can’t just take her…”_

 

_“Because the last time we left her to be watched at the hub she nearly fried the mainframe Jack.”_

 

That really wasn’t fair of Tad to bring that up. Mickey had told her that she could play with the computer. It wasn’t her fault that it got mad at her and tried to fight back. 

 

 _“I still don’t understand how that happened.”_ Dad was funny that way.

 

She scrunched up her nose and looked at the ‘stranger’ sitting on the sofa, like he really belonged there. He was almost as tall as her Dad but not as big. Curly hair but not like her Tad. He had a funny look in his eyes too, like when she was caught trying to get to the cookie jar before she even had her hand inside of it. She doesn't like him at all. 

 

_“Look it’s only for a few hours…”_

 

_“Of all people.”_

 

She wondered what would happen if she called the police and said that her parents went bonkers and left her with an Alien. Nope. The last time she had tried that they took away her phone privileges… 

…to be fair her sitter had been real mean to her and her sister. The weirdo had told them to go to bed way to early, didn‘t even let them have a snack or telly time. The Police would have never came so fast if she hadn’t told them that the lady who was supposed to be watching them, was in the other room moaning in pain. Turns out she hadn’t been alone in the room either. Andy (Aunt Gwen’s friend) had walked into the den and walked right back out, looking like he wanted to laugh. His partner Miss Teach looked at him and than walked into the room, and than walked right back out giggling half grumbling about people and their idea of right and wrong. 

Of course her parents didn’t think it was so funny when they came home. How was she supposed to know that the lady and her strange man friend (how‘d he get in anyhow?) weren’t aliens. Who made those kinds of sounds anyway? Maybe she should have listened to her sister about not phoning. The long talk her Dad and Tad had with her afterwards confused her. She didn’t know her Tad’s face could turn that many colors of red. Dad on the other hand was sitting there quietly waiting…

 

_“You do know I can hear you two squabbling.”_

 

Her Tad says something she is sure that she isn’t suppose to hear. 

 

_“Short Circuit is gonna be just fine.”_

 

She looks right at the man on the sofa her eyes narrow down, fingers itching just a little. She nearly falls off the railing she’d been hanging from when he turns and looks directly at her. She has enough of her Tad in her to look straight back. The strange man nods at her before turning back to her parents. 

 

_“Sian, come on down from there before you break your neck.”_

 

At the sound of her Dad’s voice she uncurls her legs from the bars and flips herself down onto the floor with a heavy grunt. Her feet knock into the wall, and she nearly misses the edge of the table. Her Tad is down by her side checking to see if she’s hurt. She rolls her eyes at him. 

 

_“I’ve asked you repeatedly not to do that.”_

 

Really? She can’t remember that far back if he really did or not. Wiping her nose on the sleeve of her shirt she nods. 

 

_“Now, Dad and I have to go to work for a few hours.”_

 

She shrugs away from him when he tries to straighten out her shirt. She hates when he does that, it’s only gonna get messed up anyway. Her Dad is on her other side now pointing out the stranger. 

 

_“John is an old… friend.”_

 

Tad was making that face again. The one she made when Mickey had tricked her into tasting that sour lemon candy. She got him back good for that one. Never before had she seen an adult cry over missing papers. 

 

_“He’s gonna stay with you until we get back.”_

 

Wait… what?

 

_“We expect you to be on your best behavior while we’re gone.”_

 

They were really leaving her! Had she not been punished enough? She looks at her Dad trying to see if this was a trick. “No…” 

 

_“Yes.”_

 

Her Dad must have heard her wrong so she shook her head. “No.”

 

_“What do you mean no?”_

 

_“Jack,”_

 

Her Tad turns her around to face him while her Dad gets up and walks over to the… John. His name was John. Not that she really cared. 

 

_“Sian, sweetheart.”_

 

“I don’t know him,” She figures this is the best way to start out the negotiation. “He could be a psycho.” She hears her Dad start to laugh but he stops with one look from her Tad. 

 

 _“I assure you I‘ve been rehabilitated.”_ The strange man waves his hand around. 

 

Huh. She turns to her Tad making her eyes look as serious as possible. “He could relapse. You don‘t wanna be held accountable if he sells me on the black market, do you Tad?” Why was he smiling, she was being serious. 

 

_“John wouldn‘t try anything…” he whispers real low. “If he does we‘d dump him with Janet.”_

 

“But I’d still have been sold!” 

 

 _“Sian you trust me and your Dad.”_ Now he just sounds plain tiered.

 

She thinks about this before nodding. 

 

_“Then trust that we wouldn’t leave you with a psychopath.”_

 

He kisses her cheek and gets up to walk away. She does not like this one bit, and follows them to the door. When her Tad takes John to the side to talk she scrunches up her nose. 

 

_“Hey,”_

 

She doesn’t look at her Dad. This isn’t suppose to be going like this. They were suppose to stay with her not go to work. Peeking from beneath her hair she licks her cut lip. 

 

_“Do me a favor; try not to hurt him ok?”_

 

She tries not to look so shocked when he says this. 

 

_“There‘s a large pizza waiting for you if today goes good.”_

 

“Pepperoni-Pineapple and steak?” 

 

_“Yeah, but only if you’re good.”_

 

It’s her and John standing at the door when her parents pull out of the drive way. She looks up at him and he’s looking right back down at her.

 

_“So…”_

 

“I don‘t like you.” 

 

 _“Well tough.”_ He says before walking back into the house, like he has some right to be there. 

 

Her eyes narrow down on him. She thought about this for a little bit. Her Dad said **try** not to hurt him. He never said she couldn't. She closed the front door with a familiar smirk on her face. 

~*~


	3. Teagen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nyla was her favorite dolly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok. So this chapter started out as me basically trying to fill out pages with as much detail without really making sense. Then somewhere along the way the shell around Tegan grew. I didn’t mean to paint the parents in a bad light, I tried to get them from Tegan’s POV and seriously she’s only Nine.

~*~

 

_“I just don’t think she should be stuck at home all day.”_

_“Well what’d yah expect she‘d be staying being suspended and all?!”_

_“Rhys it’s only for a few hours you know that I can‘t…”_

_“I understand how important it is but you can’t just expect to skip out…”_

_“I am not skipping out!”_

 

Tegan sat quietly at her father’s desk in his office. In front of her in a neat row was an assortment of books, and papers that belonged to her Tad. An open jewelry box with tiny trinkets spilled about, tiny jumpers and dolly’s sitting in the correct order. Important to not important. 

 

In her hand she was making her Dolly Nyla walk across the books (bridge). Nyla was her favorite Dolly because she had long shiny yellow hair. She always wanted her own black hair to be like that. Nyla had pretty blue eyes that sparkled like Riley’s marbles that her Tad has given to her on her birthday. Sometimes she wished she had eyes like that. She was tall too even without the sparkly purple like shoes. Nyla was the bestest dolly ever. 

Stopping Nyla halfway across the bridge of note books and turning her around, she stopped. Turning Nyla to face her she frowned. 

 

“We’re not having much fun are we Nyla?” 

 

She slowly turns Nyla to the left, and than to the right. She and Nyla would not be sitting here bored waiting for Mam and Tad to stop yelling. This was very silly, she could be in school listening to Miss Anna teach them something interesting. She could be sitting with her friends, Nina, Carys, Seren, and Adara talking about what new Dolly they had or what they did night before. What pretty shoes that snooty Lilly-Anne’s dumb Tad bought for her. Lilly-Anne always wore pretty shoes; it’s too bad she was snooty. If she wasn’t so snooty maybe she would let Lilly-Anne talk with her friends, and maybe share their dollies. 

 

_“Oh for god sake Rhys, I do not…”_

_“Don‘t tell me yah don‘t, when yah dam well do. Any time something things go a wee bit stray…”_

 

She really wasn’t paying that much attention to her parents, they were just yelling… 

 

Always yelling. 

 

Sometimes if she paid little attention she could tell when the yelling was over or just starting. 

 

If she came home and they were yelling real low. That meant that things were just starting so she could walk right into the room. If it was real high that meant it was just in the middle and she could tip toe in but they would not notice her. It’s when the yelling got to the ‘ **Fine** ’ word that she knew it was over. She could walk into the room and they would look at her. Really look at her like she had done something that she wasn’t suppose to. 

 

If she was really honest she liked it better when they weren’t in the room at the same time. 

 

Tad would sometimes get tetchy in the evenings, especially around dinner time. He would sit at the table and try and talk about what happened during the day times. It was nice to sit, eat and talk with Tad… when he wasn’t looking at the clock, like he was waiting for something. 

 

He really did try his hardest, and she tried to be good for him. Helping with the cleaning the plates, and drying. Drying was the funnest part. Tad would make silly faces and tell her bits of something from when he was a kid. Sometimes it was hard to picture her Tad as a little kid, like her size. Other times she would laugh real loud at the things he had done when he was littler. She loved her Tad when he was like that. That was the bestest part. 

 

She sighed when she thought of her Mam….

 

Being Special Opps meant that Mam left real early for work, like before she woke up. Sometimes she didn’t see her for days, and days, and days. It felt like forever when Mam was gone that long. Sometimes when she did see her, Mam would be sleeping on the sofa or the soft fuzzy rug in her room. That was silly of her because she knew that Mam and Tad had a perfectly good bed. It must not have been so good if her Mam did not like sleeping there… 

Sometimes she thought Mam being Special Opps was not a good thing.

 

She twisted around in her Tad’s chair for a bit twirling Nyla round and round and round…. This made her think of her Uncle Jack, and Ewythr Ianto they were special Opps too. She wondered if they weren’t at home as much too. Pushing the bottom of her feet against her Tad’s chair made the chair move backwards. That got her thinking of Sian and school… that made her scowl. 

 

It was all that animal’s fault to begin with. Honestly if she had just stopped with her stupid stories none of this would be happening. 

“What a git. As if aliens and space ships are real.” She sneered. Only babies and weirdo’s believe in that garbage. Moving Nyla down onto the arms of the chair she made her twirl again. “She is such a freak Nyla.”

 

_“Don’t you dare pin this on me!”_

 

The sound of something being thrown against the wall and breaking makes her jump in her chair. That is a new and scary sound in their yelling thing. No one is supposed to throw things, people could get hurt. The one time she did throw something she got into big trouble because she had broken Mam’s bestest earring box. 

 

_“Are you daft woman?!”_

_“What in the world would make you think that?”_

 

Being as careful as she can be, she slides off of the chair and onto the not so hard floor. Her fingers curled around Nyla’s middle very tight like. She tip toes across the room to the door that her Mam didn’t close all the way when they first came here. Peeking around the slightly open door way she saw her Mam and Tad they were standing not so close and they looked very angry at each other. 

 

_“Rhys… we had an agreement…”_

_“Which I think you will agree I’ve kept up my end…”_

_“I‘ve got work and it’s not fair for you to pull this now of all times.”_

_“Than when will be a good time for you? When Tegan‘s suspended from school for fighting with Sian? Oh wait no, that already happened didn‘t it?”_

_“They’re kids they will be bound to do that…”_

_“They always fight Gwen; apart they’re fine and well. Together they’re practically at each other’s throats. Like they’re starving dogs with the last bone. It’s not right.”_

_“I know that, I did see the black eye.”_

_“Did you really? Cause apart from last nights little talk it seems like you were in an awful rush to just…”_

_“Oh and we‘re back to that again.”_

 

There was something different about this yelling, it was almost scary. Looking down at her Tad’s feet she saw there were bits of broken glass. Her eyes went big and round. Mam had thrown a cup at her Tad? Why did she do that for, didn’t she remember how dangerous that was? Why would she want to hurt Tad for? 

 

_“You know what that’s just fine with me!”_

_“Oh there you go running off again instead of sticking it out!”_

_“I am leaving Rhys.”_

_“Fine!”_

 

There was that fine word. This time when they said it she didn’t like it very much. She wasn’t even sure that she could walk into the room right now. She squeezed Nyla’s middle real tight like. 

 

“Does this mean that I don’t have to see Sian this weekend?” 

 

Huh… Tad’s never had that look on his face before. Wonder what it is that made him look that way. 

 

_“Grab your things love bug, we‘re leaving.”_

 

Its almost like her Tad lost something really badly. Like its really over.


End file.
